Legislative Black Caucus supports suspension ban for young students

Are some children too young to be suspended from school? A Baltimore legislative delegation believes the answer is yes, and will push for legislation in the next session to ban the suspension of some of the state's youngest students.

Glenn is the chair of the Legislative Black Caucus. She said she throws her support behind legislation planned by Delegate William Smith. He wants to ban suspending students in pre-K through second grade.

"We feel no students in pre-K ages should be suspended. We need to go back to pre-K days when we had a school health nurse in every school," Smith said.

Glenn said the ban would be statewide, but she said the issue is especially important in Baltimore City where children see trauma every day from shootings to overdoses.

"When you have circumstances like that, you are not going to be on your best behavior, but that doesn't mean you need to be expelled or suspended from school. Someone needs to look into what's going on with the student," Glenn said.

The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights looked at all public schools in the country. It found that black preschool children are 3.6 times as likely to receive one or more out of school suspensions as white preschool children.

The legislation is still being drafted but the plan is to have it ready to present to the General Assembly in the upcoming session.